When Google announced last year that they were releasing a flight delay prediction feature, we were thrilled! Being the only company that predicted delays was lonely, and we were excited that Google would bring some much-needed attention to a problem we feel strongly about.

5 reasons your company needs proactive flight delay alerts

Articles discussing the financial impacts of flight delays are not hard to find. However, there isn’t much out there that puts a number or methodology to valuing the impact to the business traveler and more specifically the companies they work for.

This is somewhat of an existential question. Back when we were going through our branding exercise, we were asked to complete the following statements: "We believe __________"; and "We exist to __________". It forced us to think about why our customers, employees, and investors should care about Lumo, and why you should engage with us. We also came up with our name during that branding exercise; Lumo = LU (Illuminate) + MO (Movement/Mobility).

The negative impacts of flight delays and disruptions are well documented. Globally, flight delays are estimated to cost over 60 billion USD, and in the U.S. two out of every three flight delays are caused by somewhat predictable events, such as weather, air traffic control restrictions, or another forecastable cause. Most critical for travel agencies and travel management companies (TMCs) is the personal impact on the traveler: over half of all business travelers list delays and cancellations as the most frustrating part of travel.

The Lumo delay indexes are a score from 1 to 10 given to each flight indicating how “risky” a flight is with respect to being delayed. The score is intended to capture both delay frequency (probability of a delay occurring) and delay severity (how long will the delay be if it does happen).